


home.

by advancinginreverse



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doctor Who Series 12 Spoilers, Emotional Hurt, Gallifrey, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26534044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advancinginreverse/pseuds/advancinginreverse
Summary: the doctor returns to Gallifrey after her talk with the master. she isn't prepared for what she finds.-set after spyfall part 2, but early during series 12.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Romana II
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	home.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago, then had a moment and impulsively edited what I had. I did have some storyline or other planned when I started, but I can't remember it, and this works as a one shot anyway

Home. 

That word has a lot of meanings to all kinds of people, she muses, eyes staring at the horizon without taking anything in. To the Firillan people of Jazna, home is glittering waterfalls and lilac trees. To the Halda of Lar, it means three suns and mountains stretching up to reach them. To Ryan, Graham and Yaz, home is cloudy Sheffield with its bustling atmosphere and smiles.

To her, it means fire and ruin.

It isn't unfamiliar of course: the feeling of being adrift, alone in the universe. She'd spent hundreds of years mourning Gallifrey after the Time War - after she had burned it, she reminds herself - but she had fixed that. Gallifrey had been safe again, albeit in a pocket dimension, and everything had been right again.

But now the Master had burned Gallifrey, and she has to pick up the broken pieces of what she called home.

The Doctor knows her friends are worried, knows they only want to help. Part of her wants to reach out and take their outstretched hands - maybe she'll find some form of peace there. But it's safer if they don't know about the bloody wreckage that is her past. Safer if they don't know about the ghosts that are always one step behind her.

Before she's entirely aware of what her hands are doing, she's switching levers and pressing buttons - flipping the hourglass on the left, tapping in coordinates - and the all-too-familiar wheezing and grinding sound of the TARDIS landing echoes in her ears.

Slowly, she opens the doors, the smell of a burnt city filling her nostrils.

Home, she thinks bitterly.

Her feet begin moving, taking one step forward - two steps forward - she's out of the safety of the TARDIS - and she keeps going, towards the broken landscape below. She doesn't know how far it was, doesn't know how long she walks, but at some point or another she reaches the streets.

It's a ghost town.

Ash and shattered stone litter the streets, the empty skeletons of buildings still smoking. In some places, fires still blaze - clinging to life, feeding off the oxygen no longer being taken in by people. There are almost no bodies anywhere - there won't be, the destruction was too thorough - but every now and then there lies an imprint of an outstretched hand, a discarded basket, a teddy bear lying abandoned in the dust.

2.47 billion.

The number flashes across the Doctor's mind and suddenly her feet forget how to function. Stumbling on the ruined street, her legs finally give out and she dropped to her knees, finally giving in to the whispers of the dead.

2.47 billion children.

She can hear them all, still, crying out for help, somewhere in her mind. A whole planet of telepaths. Every one of them leaves echoes of who they were, screaming out, only heard by her. And their screams hurt, they hurt more than anything, pushing and shoving their way into her head and filling her to the brim with their broken dreams. Safe no more.

Trapped in her own head with the echoes of Gallifrey, the Doctor almost doesn't notice the body next to her. She feels a familiar presence, though. So she glances up.

Romanadvoratrelundar lies like a crumpled sheet of paper in the street.

The Doctor jerks back, a strangled sound escaping her throat. The orange light of her world seems to be jarring, too bright. Why won't her stupid limbs just cooperate for once? Everything is too loud, too intrusive, too tight - why can't she be left in peace? Why does she have to carry the weight of her species, her heritage on her shoulders once again? Their legacy is a burden, and all she wants to do was lie down with them, her grave the burning Capitol of her home.

It takes minutes (many minutes? hours? She doesn't know) for her breathing to finally come back under control, leaving her only with the slow crackling of fire in her ears and the corpse of her friend next to her. Old memories are now flooding back, from thousands of years ago. Romana had been a close friend, a welcome change from the fleeting humans whose lifespans were just so unbearably short. He had liked having someone similar to him to talk to. But like an idiot he had let her slip away (he had abandoned her, left her behind) and never got back in touch. It was too late for that now.

Sitting there, something in her finally snaps. She cries for her lost friend, mourns for the ashes of her people, screams at the universe for leading her in a circle. Back to the destruction of her home.

She sits there for a long time.

Eventually she dries her tears.  
Drawing in a shaky breath, the Doctor finally stands, clenching her fists as she rises to her feet. The walk back to the TARDIS is a long one, but she makes it (again, in minutes? Hours? Time keeps slipping by her) and set in the coordinates for Sheffield, finally leaving her smoking world behind. The voices of the dead are no longer crying out to her, leaving her alone in her head once again, but it's almost worse now. Now she's empty and alone - a reminder that she really is the last of the Time Lords.

Again.  
___________________________

Time and time again, she finds herself back on Gallifrey. The Doctor knows this isn't healthy. She knows she can't bring back the ghosts of the past, that it does no good to keep torturing herself like this. But once again she's opening the doors of the TARDIS and letting the ash dull her old girl's blue paint as she stares into the dying fires of the city.

Into the dead heart of home.


End file.
